I’m a Shopify Partner and app developer looking for help navigating what appears to be a stalled internal process.
On January 9th, I submitted a formal report through the “Report a Partner Violation” form regarding a 1-star review on my app listing that contains explicit profanity (multiple instances) and demonstrably false claims about data loss. My app has a 4.9 rating across 221 reviews – this isn’t a pattern issue, it’s a single abusive review that clearly violates Shopify’s Acceptable Use Policy and Partner Agreement Section C.2.1.
Here’s where it gets stuck: the standard “Report this review” button is missing from my Partner Dashboard for this specific review due to what appears to be a UI bug related to the merchant’s store status. So the formal report form was my only option.
It’s now been 11+ weeks. The review with active profanity is still live on my public listing. I’ve contacted support three times:
Agent 1 validated the issue and was looking up SOPs when the chat disconnected
Agent 2 acknowledged the January 9th submission but declined to escalate, advising me to “wait”
Agent 3 replied with a boilerplate template suggesting I “continue to monitor my Partner Dashboard”
I’ve done everything through proper channels. I’m not asking for a favorable review outcome – I’m asking for the report to actually be reviewed by the Partner Governance team. The fact that explicit profanity has been hosted on a public Shopify App Store page for nearly three months feels like a process failure, not a policy decision.
If any Shopify staff or Partner Managers can help route this to the right team, I’m happy to share the specific review link and all ticket references privately.
Hey @Eugene_404 - spoke with some folks internally on this and I understand this has been resolved somewhat.
I can’t share the specifics publicly, but just wanted to post on the forums here so that in case anyone else stumbles on this, that our Review Policy docs here are the best reference for questions on this: https://help.shopify.com/en/partners/help-support/faq/reviews
I definitely understand it’s not the most ideal to have to wait a long time on these things, so I’m happy to pass along any feedback that any folks would like to share regarding our processes so that we can log those and continue building processes on our side. I can’t guarantee anything, but we do definitely take queries and issues like this seriously, so any suggestions for improvement are more than welcome.
Hi Alan, thank you for looking into this and for the follow-up.
To clarify what “resolved somewhat” means in practice - the profanity (“WTF”, “GTFO”) was removed from the review, which I appreciate. However, the review still contains demonstrably false claims that violate the Review Policy and Partner Agreement Section C.2.1:
The merchant claims our app caused them to “LOSE all MY WORK and COLLECTED CUSTOMER DATA” - this is factually impossible. Our app syncs all signups to Shopify Admin > Customers in real-time. No data was lost.
The review labels our app a “SCAM” and states “REPORTING THIS APP FOR FRAUD” - despite the fact that we voluntarily issued a full refund before terminating the relationship.
The review was posted in retaliation after we fired the merchant for documented abusive behavior, which was reported to Shopify Legal via a Threat of Violence submission before the review was even posted.
I provided full evidence to Partner Governance on April 8th (ticket be5d6ac0-544e-46d1-a511-c4d7cf135af3) including the merchant’s abusive in-app messages, the refund record, and the Threat of Violence confirmation. It’s been five business days with no response.
As for process feedback - it took 13 weeks and four support contacts to get profanity removed from a public App Store listing. The false claims remain live after 15+ weeks. A clear SLA for AUP and C.2.1 violations on public-facing content would help partners like me trust the process.
I’d appreciate any help routing this to the right team for final resolution.
Hey @Eugene_404 - thanks for the follow-up here, and thanks for the detailed breakdown.
I definitely understand the frustration and concern, especially given the timeline you’ve outlined. I do want to be transparent though that I’m not able to get into the specifics of individual review decisions in a public forum, just for privacy and process reasons on our end.
For the remaining concerns you’ve raised, your best path forward is going to be continuing the conversation through the existing ticket you have open (be5d6ac0). The team working that ticket has the full context and evidence you’ve provided, so they’ll be best positioned to review and act on it. I’d recommend replying directly in that ticket to follow up on
the status.
On the process side though, your feedback here is totally valid and I’m going to pass it along internally. The point about having a clearer SLA for violations on public-facing content is a good one, and I want to make sure that gets logged on our end. I can’t guarantee anything on my side here, but I am happy to advocate for any change that can improve the experience for sure.